Jamie Hampton
jhampto6@uwyo.edu
Last year if you asked me what I was most excited about in the upcoming year, I would have said moving into my own apartment. Little did I know, I would have to put up with the annoying thing we call the bus system. We are only halfway through the fall semester and I am already fed up with the bus system.
I live in the Bison Run Village apartments and believe that it is close enough that I shouldn’t have to be at the bus stop 45 minutes early in order to maybe make it to class on time. Two weeks ago, my roommate and I were at the bus stop half an hour early in order to make it to our 9 a.m. class.
On the first occurrence we ended up showing up to class after the tardy time and it resulted in receiving an absence in the class. It is important to note that we are only allowed a certain number of absences before it starts affecting our overall grade in the class. I don’t think that I should have to be punished because the bus system wasn’t running up to par.
Luckily, the next occurrence didn’t end in us receiving an absence, but it did end in us being late because we had to speed walk to class since a bus hadn’t showed up for 15 minutes. When a man on the bus confronted the bus driver about the issue, we were all told that “they were down one bus, so it’s moving a little slower than usual.”
The number of buses isn’t the only issue we face with the bus system, although it is a big one. Another issue that could be addressed would be the number of bus stops and how they are laid out. By adding more accessible bus stops, we would be able to work on eliminating the ridiculous number of people that wait at the East Express Lot stops and people might actually make it to class on time. It has been brought up on WyoVocal that students are tired of how the bus system runs, but it does not say that that’s an issue that will be worked on.
After the one bus that was out of order was up and running it got slightly better, but it’s still not as good as it should be. I’m sure I’m not alone in this struggle and I don’t think paying students should have to deal with the frustration of the bus system. Hopefully the University will acknowledge this as the issue it is and look into ways of improving it. I can dream, can’t I?
